Ziad Dallal

Areas of Research/Interest

Research Description

My research focuses on Arabic Intellectual History in the late 19th and early 20th century. I trace, using a method of comparative philology, the cognitive networks that map the history of the Levant and Egypt in the 19th century. Philology allows me to read these intellectual networks and their histories in close fidelity to their moments of tension and slippage, thus revealing the role of contingency inherent in philological practice. The project is nuances, and thus complicates, the intellectual landscape of the 19th century Arab intelligentsia within the problem-spaces of capitalist modernity. What we find is a critical revaluation of the Nahdah as a massively heterogeneous landscape, yet to be understood on its own terms within the 19th century.

I have also written and presented on contemporary Arabic theater, specifically the works of Sulayman al-Bassam, and contemporary music in Lebanon, specifically the booming of hip-hop.